M. Brian Barnett is a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years’ experience in commercial space, and the mobile satellite services industry. He is Founder and CEO of Solstar Space, the company making persistent on-orbit space Wi-Fi and communications available. Solstar’s Space WiFi has been demonstrated twice aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard crew capsule providing WiFi and satellite internet connectivity during suborbital flights.
Solstar is working with commercial space companies, international space agencies and government organizations, and their contractors, to further the development and deployment of space WiFi and communicators for a broad range of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), cislunar, and lunar surface use cases.
Mr. Barnett began his career at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center where he provided Space Shuttle payload development and integration services at the Payloads Project Office. He trained as a Crew Interface Coordinator as he provided astronaut crew training in the Mission Operations Laboratory for Spacelab missions. At Johnson Space Center (JSC), he worked in the Missions Operations Directorate, and later worked on JSC’s 1992 Strategic Plan which included precursor planning to Artemis. He also managed a contract to document all Space Shuttle operations processes as directed by Congress after the Challenger accident. Later, as a management consultant for KPMG’s Space and High Technology group, he wrote dozens of business plans and market assessments for commercial space companies. This is the group that very early-on and accurately, predicted that GPS applications would grow into the huge market it is today. Barnett led the Team that wrote the initial business plan and helped identify the best location for the spaceport that eventually became Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Solstar Space is his third commercial space start-up. He earned a B.S. in microbiology from the University of Oklahoma, a master’s in administrative science and project management from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and is a graduate of the International Space University. Mr. Barnett is a classically trained rock drummer and percussionist. Known as the Space Drummer, Barnett is drummer and producer of DrumsAstro®, a band and production company promoting the Arts in Space.